Hi, Prospective Grad Student

Hi, prospective grad student,

Thanks for clicking on this link and for your interest in our program. What follows is part information, part advertisement. I trust you to be able to parse out which is which!

I plan to considertaking one or two graduates student in the next round of applications – that is, the applications due in January 2017 for students to begin in the Fall of 2017. By “consider,” I mean I would like to take a student if I can. I not committed to taking any students, but am hoping to add one or two graduate studentsif the right student comes along. Also, my ability to take a student depends on how many other faculty members want to take them and other things I can’t really control, such as funding. However, I do plan on very seriously looking at applications with the goal of taking a student, and if you are interested in working with me, I’d encourage you to at least contact me and consider applying.

First: We have a Social/Political Psychology Ph.D. emphasis here at UM. If you applied to work with me, you’d be applying for the Experimental Ph.D. program, with an emphasis in Social/Political Psychology. I am the only faculty in the Social emphasis at this moment, but we are planning on hiring a new Social/Quant position that will increase the Social Psychology presence in the department. When that is, I don’t know.

Technically, if you got a Ph.D. in Social Psychology here, your degree would say “Experimental Psychology” when you finished. But, as far as I am concerned, that is immaterial to your job prospects, and your emphasis would be in Social Psychology. It would be no different than my degree in Social Psychology from the University of British Columbia, except that you’d have a few less specific courses in social (which has pros and cons, both minimally important in my view), due to the fact that I can only teach two graduate seminars (though more will likely come with the new faculty hire, if we do ever hire that line). Since I think graduate education is NOT mostly about coursework but rather direct experience (and especially research and teaching experience), I don’t view this as very important.

A quick note: Somewhere on the Experimental web site (I think) it indicates that our program is a four-year program. But if you work with me, it might be five years. (The national average is, I think, closer to six, so this ain’t bad). That isn’t because I require anything extra of you in terms of course work (in fact, I want you as a rule to take as few courses as possible), but rather because I think you need the extra year to publish stuff, and 4 years is REALLY pushing it anyway. So I would think of it as a five-year program and not a four-year one, if I were you. (In fact, I’d guess most of our students in all experimental programs actually TAKE five years, but I’ve never found out any facts; I’ve graduated two students so far, one took five years, and the other four). Although one of my students actually did finish in four years, so I’m not committed to that. Also, if you already have an MA: I rarely consider taking students who only want to spend two additional years here getting a Ph.D. I would only consider you in that event if you already had a good publication record. My reason: Two years here is simply not enough time to build up a job-worthy CV. So I do consider students who already have an MA, but you should know that you would be expected (in all likelihood) to be here for 4 or 5 years, MA or no. (Though your Thesis and some of your MA coursework may transfer). Ask me if you have questions about this. (One of my former graduate students came in with an MA, and often those folks are excellent candidates, so I’m not trying to discourage you – only give you information).

What would you do when you finished? I am only capable of training you to do one thing, and one thing only: Be a professor. It’s possible you could get other research-related jobs, but I would not pretend to provide any training towards that, nor do I want to work with any folks except those who want to be professors.

The job market for Social Psychology is really tough right now (one of the downsides of our popularity). However, my first student that graduated with her Ph.D. in Social got a post doc position at UTEP (fall 2013 start date) and is currently working at Roanoke College. My second graduated student is currently working at Syracuse University teaching a 3/2 load. As a larger experimental program, we have typically placed our experimental folks who get academic jobs in small private liberal arts universities (for example, Carroll College in Helena) or mid-tier state universities (for example, the University of Central Arkansas). As a rule, I have no intention of taking anyone that I do not think capable of getting an academic job, and my focus from day one will be preparing you for the current job market (which I understand and know very well, and am willing to work hard to continually learn about it).

Why work with me at UM? Here is my highly biased opinion: I think in working here you get a lot of the advantages of a small, homey environment but…you also get a big-time education. We don’t have all the resources of Harvard or Michigan, and I’m not saying we’re THAT good, but past the pure resource issue, the gap in what you’d get here versus some of those so-called “larger” programs is, in my mind (at the end), not that great. Certainly not as great as you’d suppose. To be frank: To get a job you are going to have to publish – and I mean, publish before you go to apply for jobs. And I think I’ll likely help you quite a bit in that regard. I have a history to this point of publishing a lot on average. Of course that could stop tomorrow – at least some of that depends on factors no one can control -- but I plan on continuing to try to publish a lot, and I think the odds are at least decent that I’ll have some success. And when I publish, I frequently publish with graduate students. I’ve published articles in all five of the top journals in social psychology by citation rates (including three articles in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, one of the most influential journals in the whole field of psychology writ large), as well as articles in top journals in both cultural psychology (Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology) and political psychology (Political Psychology), and the largest-circulated psychology journal across all fields (American Psychologist). Our work has also been featured in The Washington Postand USA Today, and I’ve been interviewed on NPR and BBC Radio. Our social program has ties (via research projects), either currently or in the past, to the University of Michigan (where I’ve given a talk), the University of Minnesota, Cal, the University of Massachusetts, and Cambridge. So I think you’d get more than perhaps you might initially suppose in working here.

Graduate students almost NEVER work on a project with me without at least the opportunity to be an author on a paper (assuming something publishable comes out of it, which is probably 30% of the time). The only exceptions to that rule are when I am not in direct control of authorship, such as on the occasional paper where I collaborate with several authors at other schools and am not myself the first author. Bottom line: I think you’d likely get the training on how to survive in an academic world on your own, along with the tangible benefits of publishing yourself (which you’d absolutely need on your CV to get a job in the current environment). And you would not have to deal with the sometimes-baggage of so-called “bigger” research universities, because we do not have quite as “cut-throat” an environment (in my experience) as some of those places.

Now I’m not going to focusfor too long on the disadvantages of working with me, because that’s bad form in a recruitment message! : ) But for the record, I’m quite forgetful, disorganized, and have high standards, which can be an irritating combination. I am annoying about statistical issue and hate confidence intervals with a passion that will really surprise you. I partially expect you to be more competent than I am in terms of helping me run the lab – that is, not in terms of design, statistics, etc., but rather in terms of sheer organization and so forth. (On the bright side, I am at least partially aware of these faults!) Also, funding here is not great overall (talk to me about that if you want to know what I know about it). Finally, as this long message implies, I am famously loquacious and long-winded!

What can you expect working with me?
You are going to get opportunities to publish.
I’m going to help you learn how to do actual statistics as we do them in our field, by sitting down with you at the computer.
I’m going to rip the first draft of your thesis to shreds because I believe it is better for me to do that than your committee (and if your committee does it, it might jeopardize your career). Sorry!
I am at least once going to tell you to do something and then, later, ask why you did such a thing! Then you can remind me why and we’ll have a good laugh. Then I’ll go drink a latte and eat a cheesy bagel and forget the whole thing.
You will be expected to work in my lab every term that you are working as my graduate student. Your responsibilities will vary considerably, but generally the expectation is that you will be running the lab, supervising undergraduate students, helping me design and implement projects, etc. Recently, in congruence with the exciting re-commitment to Social by the department, my own attitude towards the lab has shifted so that it has become more graduate-student focused. My vision is that the grad students basically run the lab and I provide oversight to them. This is important training for you (don’t worry, I or someone will train you how to do all this stuff), as well as obviously very beneficial for me! But I want to be clear: If you work with me, that’s my expectation. Sometimes you’ll get course credit, sometimes not, but either way, I expect you to work in my lab each term. And that’s above and beyond your own work on your thesis. I like a rule I learned from my own supervisor: I think it’s good for you to always be working on (at least) one thing of my design, and (at least) one that is more of your own design. Both of those have pros and cons for you (e.g., plugging into an established research program = more likelihood of publications and training on how successful research works; doing your own thing = more intrinsically rewarding and learning to survive on your own), so I think it’s good to always do both from day one.
That said, your thesis (and to a lesser degree, your dissertation) project will have to fall within the parameters of work we’re already doing in the lab. The first time I supervised someone at an MA program many years ago, I let her do a project that was outside of my own area of expertise. Afterwards she told me that she wished I would have made her do something that was more in line with my own interests; and I believe she was right. There are multiple benefits of that, some obvious, some not so much, but as I’m getting tired of typing (and I assume you are getting tired of reading), I’ll just stick to the main point here: I’m not going to supervise an MA or dissertation project that is way outside of my normal interests. So be apprised of that.
I will personally work with you on evaluating and improving your teaching methods and abilities.

What sort of student am I looking for? I’m looking for students who (in no particular order):
Are extremely responsible,
Roll up their metaphorical sleeves and do hard work without complaint,
Are extremely nice,
Can take constructive criticism and keep ticking,
Can write well (a big part of what we do is writing),
Can think well (a big part of what we do is generating ideas and thinking about them),
Can speak well (you’ll have to be at least a modestly effective teacher to be a prof),
Use e-mail as a primary form of communication or can easily adapt to doing so (because that’s MY primary form of communication besides face-to-face meetings),
Are genuinely interested in being a professor,
Are genuinely interested in researchwrit large,
Are genuinely interested in our research specifically (“our” meaning our lab’s – see the website for more details). It doesn’t have to be your favorite thing, and you will not in all likelihood end up doing your “most” favorite thing wherever you go for grad school, but it has to be intrinsically interesting enough that you can carve out a “niche” in it that keeps you getting out of bed. THEN, when you finally get your first real job, you can do all the wacky things you’ve been wanting to do research on! (It’s a great gig, being a prof).
It would help if you have passed the integrative complexity test before you apply. If you don’t know what that is, see the resources page on the lab’s web link, and/or e-mail me about it. You will likely be working across both labs, no matter where your primary interest lies, and I like grad students who are already “certified” to code IC.

In terms of what I weigh on your actual application, I weighstuff to the degree that it helps me determine how you fit into these categories in section 7 above. So your letters are very important. Your GPA tells me a little about how responsible and smart you are, and the GRE helps a little with the smart part (I don’t weigh the GRE as much as some folks). A genuine writing sample would outweigh a lot of those – if I could trust that it was really you that wrote it. So I try to figure out how well you can write from what I get. You must convince me in your materials that you want to be a prof and that you are truly interested in social or political psychology. There is no “perfect” formula for an application – most have strengths and weaknesses. If you have questions, just ask and I’ll tell you what I can.
If you really want to impress me, send me a 5-to-10-minute video clip of you teaching on some social/political-psych-related topic! It doesn’t have to be an actual class, I mean, just you and the camera with some prepared notes. To date, I have never accepted anyone as a graduate student that I have not seen teach something (or give some presentation), either live or on videotape. I am increasingly realizing the importance of teaching for your job prospects in the current market, so despite the fact that I’m a research-first person, I’m weighing your teaching potential more heavily than I used to. I don’t want to take someone that I don’t believe can get a job!

Please e-mail me if you have questions about this! I would actually much prefer you to e-mail me before you apply (if you plan on doing so), to get to know you at least a little bit.

Also, if you are uncertain about academia and what that would entail, I’d be happy to chat about that as well. You ought to know, if you are uncertain about which path to take, that professors consistently show at or near the top of job satisfaction rankings – in other words, I have a LOT of fun coming to work, and there aren’t a lot of people in the world that can say that, and other professors say the same. It has its downsides like any job (work all summer for free, low pay compared to the amount of education put in beforehand), of course, but overall it’s a great gig. But you have to enjoy research at some intrinsic level.

If you made it this far reading this message, thanks! Amazingly, I am actually done now.

Cheers,

---Luke